S1 E7: Part 2: Packing List for Walking the Thames Path

Welcome to Second Act Travels, the podcast for curious midlife explorers ready to

trade crowded summers for smart, meaningful off season adventures.

If you're over 50 and dreaming of meaningful travel that fits your freedom and your budget,

you're in the right place.

I'm Elizabeth and each week I'll bring you tips, stories and inspiration to help you

travel deeper, go further and embrace your second act with confidence.

Welcome back everyone.

This is part two of our series on how to walk the Thames Path National Trail.

For those of you who missed part one, you can go back to the previous podcast.

The Thames Path National Trail is a very easy long distance trail for beginners.

It's mostly flat.

It runs approximately 200 miles from the source of the Thames river and the Cotswolds

up to and through London and ending at the North Sea.

As promised, we will talk about the packing list.

If you want to do a long distance hike,

specifically from inn to in.

Now, this means that you're not tenting, you're not camping, you're not wild camping.

You are actually walking between towns.

And when you finish your stage at the end of

the day, you'll check into a pub or bed and breakfast or a hotel, whatever is to your

liking, and then you get up the next day and you'll walk the next stage.

I pretty much followed the trailblazer guides walking the Thames Path because I liked the

way they broke it down into certain stages.

And it has stages if you're having a quick walk or if you're at a more relaxed pace.

Of course, I was probably at the slowest pace possible, but I did get to see everything that

I wanted, so, so I took my time and really enjoyed everything.

Packing for the Thames Path can be a lot of fun, actually.

It's sort of neat to be able to carry everything on your back, you know, everything

you need and nothing you don't.

In general, the rule is not to exceed more than 10% of your body weight.

Sometimes I think that's possible, sometimes it isn't.

But I'll share my packing list with you and you can adjust it to your own needs.

So here we go.

The Thames Path is really different from some of the other national trails in the UK because

you are so close to civilization almost entirely throughout the hike.

In the beginning of the hike,

it is definitely a quieter stretch of England,

but I think the longest that you ever go between towns is 11 miles.

And that's only one time.

Usually the towns are about seven miles apart, sometimes five obviously you go through towns

more quickly the further you go towards London.

So you'll always have great cell reception.

You'll always be able to call for help if you need it.

You'll always be able to call home if you need it.

There are plenty of towns along the way.

There will also be plenty of food and water

along the way, so you don't need to carry gallons of drinking water.

I carried a two liter drinking pouch and I would fill it up probably with about a liter,

liter and a half just so that I didn't add too much weight to my backpack and I would carry

lunch with me.

But you know, a piece of fruit and you know, maybe a roll or something, I didn't, you know,

I didn't usually eat a big lunch.

Either way, if I got hungry, I could easily stop at a town pubs all along the way.

What's also great about that is that there's transportation in between towns.

So if you accidentally step into a really muddy, muddy patch and you're wet up to your

knees,

you can stop walking,

get transportation and take it to your final destination.

Buses are plentiful,

as are cabs.

Uber as well.

Don't be afraid to try this hike because there's plenty of rescue options should you

need it.

Okay, you decided that you want to hike the Thames Path National Trail and you're saying,

but where do I start packing?

I have no idea what to bring.

I can help with this.

It's most helpful to to divide up packing into three separate categories.

Hiking wear,

non hiking wear, street clothes and non clothing items.

And we'll go through the list one by one.

Some of the things that I brought might not interest you or might not apply to you.

That's okay.

You may have a different idea and I'd love to hear about it.

If so,

the first thing I started with.

And let's assume for the purpose of this hike

that you're going to do it in the off season because you can travel any time of year and

you don't want to have a really crowded trail.

And I should also mention that the Thames Path can be hiked any time of year.

However,

the later in the winter you go,

there might be more flooding on the trail.

But I also can give you a resource in the show notes that will give you day to day bulletin

of flooding alerts in England.

So I'll put that in the show notes.

All right, back to hiking wear.

The first thing that I packed is long underwear.

A very lightweight pair, but long underwear nevertheless.

As it turns out, I Didn't need it.

I tend to just get really warm while I'm

walking nonstop.

I brought it,

but I didn't need it.

You may, if you run cold, you might want to

bring it.

For hiking.

I also brought a long sleeve activewear shirt.

I mean, I just went to Target and I bought something that was appropriate to sweat in and

you know, maybe get a little worn while you're hiking.

So I bought a long sleeve activewear shirt and I also brought a lightweight Henley long

sleeve shirt.

If it was an extremely warm day,

warm being relative to November, I might just wear my Henley long sleeve shirt or a long

sleeve shirt.

I took one medium weight hoodie,

nothing too bulky because I didn't want it to take up too much room in my backpack,

but it would keep me warm.

I brought two pairs of hiking pants and it's really important that you have two pairs

because if you do what I did and stepped into the mud all the way up to your knees,

you're going to want a dry pair to use the next day.

So two pairs of hiking pants,

three pairs of hiking socks.

These should be quick, dry and moisture

wicking.

The worst thing that can happen is you wear wet socks and you will get blisters that way.

So I always have a pair of dry socks.

I bring.

Brought three pairs with me and three pairs of underwear, of course.

Then I brought a windbreaker.

This was not a very fancy windbreaker, but it

was lined and it also had a hood.

I also went to REI and I was fitted for walking boots.

And I highly recommend that you invest in a really good pair.

I, I know that there are people that walk the Thames path with sneakers or trainers.

I'm not sure that that's the easiest thing to do or the best thing to do, let's put it that

way.

I used my walking boots.

I made sure they were waterproof and made sure they fit properly.

And that's why I was fitted especially for it.

So you might have an outdoor clothing store

that is near you.

Feel free to go and get them fitted correctly.

And the last thing I used every day while hiking is my pair of walking poles.

I invested in a good pair of walking poles.

What's important is that they collapse and

that also they can have some adjustability in their height.

I used walking poles that I bought through rei and I'll certainly put the link to those

because I thought they were just fantastic and they held up well and I still use them for

every single walk.

Now, believe it or not, that's all I used when I was hiking.

For hiking clothes.

Let's talk about street clothes.

Those also went into my backpack, but I did

not pack a lot.

Again, I packed a pair of lightweight sneakers

for after hiking.

Especially if your hiking boots got wet that

day's stage, it's helpful to have a pair of lightweight shoes.

It could be, I use Keds sneakers.

You could use a pair of flats or whatever works for you.

Just a pair of lightweight shoes,

a pair of jeans, or an extra pair of long pants.

I brought one of those for after I finished the hike.

I brought a pair of pajamas.

So I just bought.

Brought something very lightweight.

And I also brought a shirt,

just a long sleeve shirt to wear for dinner at the pub or something like that.

That was all I brought for street clothes.

Now this is also a good time to mention outerwear, because if you're walking off

season and in cool temperatures,

you're going to have to bring some outerwear specific to the season.

For example,

a rain poncho.

Actually, no matter what time of year in

England, you should always prepare for rain.

So a rain poncho is essential.

It should fit over your backpack if possible.

And I don't think you need to bring an umbrella only because you will have the rain

poncho.

You also want to prepare for colder weather.

So bring gloves and a hat and definitely

sunglasses because even though it will rain, it will also be periods of sun.

Let's talk about some non clothing items.

All right, so now we're at non clothing items.

And here's where you get a lot of variation.

I think you can decide whether I mention something that interests you and you think,

hey, I should bring this.

That's a good idea.

Hadn't thought of it.

Or you can decide to ignore it.

Totally up to you.

The first thing is I think something that probably a lot of over 50 year olds have,

which is a travel CPAP.

I have sleep apnea.

I have terrible sleep apnea and I invested in a travel CPAP.

It is less than £2.

It has its own little carrying pouch,

doesn't take up much room in my backpack.

So I brought that along and I just plugged it

in at night.

But I made sure that I got a good sleep every night and the CPAP definitely helps me do

that.

So if you have sleep apnea and you have a CPAP

machine, you don't need to lug around that big thing.

You can purchase something smaller.

I also brought one emergency on the go toilet.

So I went to REI or I went to a camping store

and I just found A on the go emergency toilet that just in case, if I absolutely couldn't

find a bathroom nearby I had with me.

It was really just more peace of mind.

I never used it because towns are so frequent

along the Thames path.

I did bring one though, just in case.

I brought a journal and a pen.

I did write every night after I finished my

day's hike, how I was feeling, what I saw, what was interesting,

or you can just record it into your phone, that's fine.

Toiletries, self explanatory and definitely up to you.

Obviously make sure you have enough of your prescription medications or something like

that.

Even if I had left my luggage somewhere during the day, I always put my toiletries into the

day pack because it had my medicine and everything else in it.

And then that lastly was the collapsible day pack.

And I use a new Outlander day package.

It collapses right down into something that's

about 5 inches by 5 inches square and it has three separate compartments so you can put a

lot of things in there.

I don't feel that it's waterproof and I don't really think it needs to be waterproof because

I would just use a poncho if I needed it and.

But the collapsible day pack is an absolute

must have,

especially if you're just going out at night and you just want to have some things with

you.

It can hold a bottle of water and things like that.

So the new Outlander day pack, I used that every single time I went out as I got closer

to London.

So those were the non clothing items and altogether my pack weighed between 13 and 14

pounds.

But you also must figure that you have to add a couple of pounds for water.

Water can be extremely heavy and even though you don't need to carry a lot with you,

you don't need to carry gallons and gallons because there are towns along the way and pubs

and things.

Um, there are also places along the path where you can get drinking water.

Water can be heavy.

So I just had a two liter pouch that I bought

and I filled it up to about a liter, liter and a half and I would just make sure to fill that

up when I stopped for lunch.

But do know that even if the pack doesn't feel that heavy on mile one, it might start to feel

heavy by mile 6 or 7 or 10 or 12.

Other thing that I carried is the Trailblazer guide.

I mentioned that in the first episode of this podcast and I did something a little bit

different.

Rather than carry the whole guide with me,

which is a couple of hundred pages.

I just ripped out the sections that I needed.

I just took probably about 70 or so pages that I definitely wanted to have at the ready as my

resource.

And I ripped those out and I put them in my backpack.

And as I finished the stage, I would leave those and recycle the pages.

But that's a good way of not carrying more than you need to, but also making sure that

you have the the printed material that you need.

Well, that's it for today's episode of Second Act Travels.

I urge you to check out my blog, second acttravels.com there's a very in depth article

about end to end hiking and specifically hiking the Thames Path National Trail.

Look forward to seeing you back soon.

Thanks.

So thanks so much for checking Second Act Travels out and I'll see you back here soon.

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